Steal of home (Video)

[umpjim]

Originally Posted by Manny A

I don't see how anyone could argue that a catcher moving onto or in front of the plate does not prevent the batter from striking at a pitched ball. Do you really need the batter to physically swing the bat to make that determination?



What you highlighted should be taken into context only with the complete A.R., not as a universal statement. It's basically instructing umpires that not all types of contact between the batter's bat and the catcher/mitt are CI. That doesn't mean that the only way to call CI is to have the batter actually swing and be prevented from hitting the ball.

If the catcher grabs the bat while it's still in the batter's prep position, and the batter looks back at the catcher with a "WTF?" expression on his face as the pitch comes in, please tell us you'll make the CI call, even though there was no swing attempt.

I agree with a CI call. I'm just trying see if there is some justification why some NCAA big dogs don't call it. I guess they haven't seen Matt's NCAA interp. On a previous discussion on another site there was arguement that no swing would be no CI.